The present invention concerns a cabinet assembly, and in particular a cabinet adaptable for use with a removable partition panel having a door that is stored above the cabinet.
Cabinets including an over-the-top door are known and are often preferred over other cabinets because the doors do not strike objects within the cabinet, and further do not take up space within the cabinet when opened. Another benefit is that the top of the cabinet must stay free of clutter because the door prevents use of the space above the cabinet for storage purposes. Such cabinets and doors often use a sliding hinge arrangement, where a pair of hinges are attached to a top and front of the cabinet and a track is attached to a side of the door for both slidably and pivotally engaging the hinge. The door opens by sliding the door upwardly and/or outwardly until the door can be slid onto the top of the cabinet for storage in an open position. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,771,847.
A problem is that these pivot/slide hinged doors can close with guillotine-like motion if the doors are prematurely released when partially open. This results in the doors moving vertically downwardly by gravity with a potentially unsafe speed and force unless proper care is used. Some cabinet manufacturers have conceived of alternatives to reduce the potential or likelihood of such accidental downward movement of the doors. However, the known alternatives are costly, include an unacceptable number of components, are mechanically too complex, and/or are difficult to assemble.
Also, racking and binding of doors can be problematic. When sliding the door between the opened and closed positions, doors may cant, thus binding the door against the cabinet itself or within the mechanisms attaching the door to the cabinet.
Therefore, an apparatus solving the aforementioned problems and having the aforementioned advantages is desired.